Getting stuck in

I haven’t flown my Savannah since my last trip to the UK in it back in August of last year. The main reason is that it suffered slight damage to its screen as a result of the brutal headwinds to which it was subjected which I think were much stronger than most ULMs are designed to resist. The damage was not so severe as to need the screen to be be replaced but it was bad enough for it to need repairing before the Savannah could take to the air again.

There are two pop rivets that secure the front of the screen to two sloping uprights inside the cabin and in order to minimise the stress on the polycarbonate (or so I’d thought) I’d placed a rubber washer between the screen and each metal upright before pop riveting the screen to them. I thought that these would be enough to protect the screen from damage due to the pressure of the air while in flight but I was wrong, mainly because the winds I’d encountered were far greater than what I’d ever anticipated.

As a result one of the pop rivets had failed completely leaving a hole in the screen and although the other had stayed in, spider web cracks were beginning to extend from its hole. I therefore had to remove the rivet, stop-drill the latter and resecure the screen to the sloping uprights with a much better (larger) metal washer/rubber washer sandwich arrangement, which I did a couple of days or so ago.

So so far, so good. That left the job of giving the aircraft a really good wash because as it had been standing in the barn for so long, it had a good coating of dust and also poo from the little finch-like birds that have made the barn their home. And the problem was exacerbated because when I sold my old X-Air I’d moved the Savannah into the centre of the floor and hadn’t realised that its wings were exactly under a roof beam on which the little birds perch, in order to do their toilet apparently.

It doesn’t take much to remove the dust and poo – all that’s needed is a good soaking with clean water using a large floor mop – so that’s what I got stuck into and did this evening after the day had cooled down from its high of over 35 degrees C. The dust washed off easily and probably also helped to remove the bird poo in the process because 99% of the latter is dry before it hits the Savannah’s paintwork. Think mice poop, which is what I originally thought it was until the truth hit me.

The first few shots show ‘before and after’ with one wing still as all of the Savannah’s horizontal surfaces had started out. The others show the dust and poo closer up.

I also noticed that the screen was showing some slight stress crazing around both rivet holes bit it’s not significant and there’s nothing I can do about it other than replacing the screen which isn’t justified. However, the polycarbonate low down in the middle of the screen was also showing some signs of oxidation, rather like car headlamps, and this evening I used some special polish that I received the other day to deal with it.

It seems to have worked really well. I also bought some black leather dye for the Savannah’s seats which I’ll probably apply tomorrow so after that I’ll give more details on it and the special polish I used on the screen.